1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to computerized film reprocessing techniques and, more particularly, to polygonal masking techniques used in picture colorization.
2. Description of Related Art
Film colorization, that is, colorizing black-and-white motion pictures, turned the film industry on its side in the mid-1980s. With less than adequate color selection and limited hardware and software capabilities, early attempts at colorizing notable black-and-white-film classics such as "Casablanca" and "The Big Sleep" produced less than favorable results, resulting in muddy hues that didn't always stick to the objects they were meant to color. Indeed, many film purists likened colorization to vandalism and defacement. However, in the 1990s a demand was created by the skyrocketing cost of producing new movies and television shows coupled with the burgeoning demand for movies and television shows to fill up time slots on the 500 or so cable channels, a demand which has been an incentive for colorizers to advance their craft to much higher levels of quality.
Colorizers have also applied their craft to more varied fields, fields which do not necessarily involve original black-and-white picture stock. For example, in the past if a director of a picture were unhappy with the color of a particular shot, the director would have had to reshoot the shot, which would have incurred high production costs. Further, commercial artists and advertisers may desire to intensify particular aspects of television commercials to be more appealing to consumers of target markets. Other special color effects may also be desired for a particular film, video, or television show, particularly music videos which are often intended for the less conservative teenage and young adult audience.
Those associated with picture colorization understand the amount of time and effort required to colorize or recolorize a picture. For example, after a picture is digitized, segmented into shots consisting of any number of individual frames, and stored on a database, colorists and other skilled personnel spend countless hours "masking" objects which entails drawing polygons around objects such as actors, animals, and so on, which objects are substantially homogeneous in color.
There are many times when these polygons need to be adjusted during the course of colorizing a particular shot. For example, if as a shot progresses an object such as an animal moves from the background of the shot to the foreground or vice versa, the shape of the object changes, and, therefore, the polygon around that object will need to be changed. Polygons typically require more lines to accurately mask the object while the object is in the foreground as opposed to the background. Therefore, as the shot progresses, the user has to reshape the polygon around the object in order to maintain an accurate mask of the object, thereby requiring much time and effort.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide polygon reshaping techniques which enable a user to alter or modify existing polygonal object masks with increased efficiency and productivity.